Price?

Gotta love games of Telephone with customers. 

I was already in a semi irritated mood because for whatever reason, this Saturday customers decided that they needed to call the store. 
Which I get later in the day.
But when we've only been open like thirty minutes and I've already fielded a dozen phone calls...
One gets rather irritated rather quickly.
Like....why are you calling now?! I need to be getting the rest of my opening tasks done and you're not helping if I'm constantly having to step away to go see if we have the product in stock or double check a price or sale for you. 

So.
I answer the phone.
And the customer on the other hand asked if we had Neons in stock.
Which lucky me.
I knew the answer to that as I had actually looked in that tank this morning. So I already knew that answer. 
"Yes." 
Thankfully. As we'd been out of neons for a couple weeks now because they didn't send us any in our last shipment of fish. 
But of course the customer couldn't leave it at that. They wanted to know how many I had and how much they were.

To which the latter I responded "They're currently on sale for a dollar." 
The customer was like "Huh? How much?"
"For a dollar" I repeated.
"You mean I can get Four for a dollar?" Which you could hear the excitement in his voice at the prospect of getting a ton of fish for cheap.
"No...they're a dollar each." I corrected him.
Which is still a pretty good deal all things considered. 

But yah...gotta love the games of telephone I have to play when the reception isn't always the greatest. 

-Sarnic Dirchi

Special Price For Me?

Gotta love the customers that are always on the look out for a deal.

Currently we have a sale going on at work, where if a customer buys a specific 10 gallon tank, then they will be able to purchase a Leopard Gecko for just $5. 
-Which they're usually around $20 or so. 

And I had this customer come into the store.

Who was interested in getting a leopard gecko. 

But I didn't find that out until later.

All I knew was that he needed help getting a large like 40 gallon tank down onto a cart. (which a manager helped with that.) 

It was later when he asked for help where he was like: 
So I'm buying this tank -40 gallon- and I see here that you have a sale where if you buy this 10 gallon tank you can get the leopard gecko for $5. So my question is, is that since I'm buying the larger tank and will need to buy all the supplies separately....can I still get the Leopard Gecko for $5? 

To which I was like...yah it sounds reasonable. But....sales are usually to specific products.
So I went to the manager. Because manager says all. 
and they were like: Well. I can't give you that sale because it is to the specific product. But because you are buying everything, I could possibly give you $5 off the lizard so you're paying less.... 

As often we don't discount live animals because well...I believe we have specific price agreements with the breeders or something. *shrugs* Because I know we can't price match live animals to the prices other stores. 

Honestly I probably would have just bought the 10 gallon kit and called it good. Getting the leopard gecko for the $5 price. 
As really they're fine in 10 gallon tanks. And occasionally people will put them in 20 long. But it's rare to put them in 40 gallon tanks. O.o
This customer might be the first to do it that I've helped. 

In the end....
I don't know what he ended up doing.
If he got the tank and everything separately or decided to rethink it all.
All I know is that I never helped him get that leopard gecko....

-Sarnic Dirchi

People Are Strange

Sometimes I get those customers in the store....where I wonder if they're on something. 
Because like....they have this frentic energy about them. And don't quite seem all there. 

So I was helping a customer with betta fish as my coworker was bagging up crickets. When this other customer basically butted in asking if we had a specific type of betta in stock.

He was looking for a big blue long finned betta that was some sort of 'dragon variety' 

But the conversation started with: "What's your most expensive betta?" 

As apparently these fish are expensive....the style he was looking for.
But my most expensive type wasn't the type he was looking for.
He was looking for one with long fins. Like the longest fins you've ever seen....

Which like dude....the bettas are in cups....how do you expect their fins to be long?? *shakes head* 

I did my best to try and help him find the style of betta he was looking for.
But unfortunately, I didn't carry the type of betta he wanted.

However, he jumped right from not being able to find a betta, to asking me about the crickets that my coworker had been bagging for him.
Mostly in...how do you keep them from escaping?
Which like...you don't? 
They'll escape no matter what. 

And then after receiving that answer, he took me over to the chameleons, and asked about cages and wanted to know dimensions of a cage and lectured me about types of cages of chameleons...

And like his whole thought process was just....chaotic.
He jumped from topic to topic so quickly.
Seeming so frantic.
Like....I had to wonder if he was alright.... 
Seriously...such a weird fifteen minute interaction with this guy.
Where I felt like I never got a good answer for him that satisfied him....

-Sarnic Dirchi

A Scrape

It was such a simple thing. 

I was in the back, making sure the animals had their food and water and such.
And my manager came back asking to grab a portable gravel vacuum that we have there. 

And it should have been easy to grab it off the paper towel dispenser. It wasn't. 
It was caught.
And so in the process of trying to get it unstuck...
I ended up scraping a good chunk of skin off my arm. 
Like right where my watch usually rests.
I wouldn't be surprised if the watch was the causation of the scrape. 

But I didn't think of it as a big deal...
Until it started bleeding.
:S
So I went and grabbed a bandaid and cleaned it and such.
Thinking that was that.

Only it wasn't.

For like the rest of my shift...so like five hours or so?
That scrape continued to bleed. 
Which...I'd have expected it to scab up pretty quickly...
But I guess scrapes are different from cuts and claw marks....
Because it didn't stop.
Probably because I was injured near a pulse point, so the blood was nearer the surface? *shrugs* Who knows.
But it was also on my left hand.
And being left handed.
I use that limb for basically everything.
So it wasn't like I was holding still to let the blood settle either. 

Thankfully, once I got home from work and was able to rest my arm for a bit (yay naps) it finally stopped bleeding.

Still...so weird for such a minor injury to be such a hassle. 

-Sarnic Dirchi

Shrimp

So I'd been busy in the back of the store, mostly on the hunt for a scan gun. When the call came over the radio that a customer needed help in the fish section.

Which is always annoying when I had just barely LEFT that section not THIRTY seconds before.

Like. Where were you person before went to the back? Did you seriously only wait ten seconds before going to the cashier to request aid?

*shakes head*

In any case, I was busy, and my coworker was also busy....so the cashier ended up having a manager cover them so they could go help the customer until one of us in the dept was free. 

By the time I got up there -as I got waylaid by other customers-

My coworker the cashier, was in the middle of catching Ghost Shrimp.

Which is always a semi adventure, because those clear hard to see creatures like to jump. 

So when you catch it, they can like...flip themselves out of the net before it even leave the water.

Or even flip themselves out of the containers if you manage to get them out of the tank into the little container before you put them in the bag. 

*shakes head* 

And my coworker...well he was struggling.

Because he doesn't often catch fish.

And doesn't know how tricky ghost shrimp could be. 

But he managed Somehow....

Until he tried to pour the shrimp into the bag...

and like only two of the five made it into the bag.

I ended up taking over for him, just to get the job done faster and make sure the shrimp made it inside the bag. 

Because him kneeling on the ground trying to pour the shrimp into the bag was kinda...awkward...like why not go stand at the podium?? *shakes head*

Still.

Shrimp made it into the bag.

Hopefully they do alright in the guy's tank...

-Sarnic Dirchi

A Big Visitor

It was sometime after I'd returned from lunch.
Or at least I'd like to think that it happened while I was at lunch.
Because it's really weird that no one saw this.

But I'd returned to the fish wall after my lunch break.

And happened to look in one of our angelfish tanks, because I look at them, dreaming of possibly getting more angelfish for my own tank and knowing that that's not a good idea.

When I saw something out of the ordinary.

As the tank of angelfish I was staring at....were the tiny angelfish. The babies. The ones that are like no bigger than a quarter. 

But within the tank.
Was definitely an Angelfish bigger than a quarter.
No, this was like a full grown angelfish!!

Of course my first thought was. "Oh hey, my coworkers yesterday put the angelfish in the wrong tank." 
As the large Angelfish are in the tank right above the small one.

Except.

There was one problem with that.
I HAD FISHED OUT FISH FROM THAT TANK EARLIER THAT DAY AND THERE WAS NO GIANT ANGELFISH IN SAID TANK!

I mean, I would have noticed this huge fish hanging out with the babies pretty quickly if I was catching the small ones.
Even if I hadn't had to pull any fish from that tank earlier, I would have noticed because I do a dead fish pull every morning (cus sadly fish die) and I always check the angelfish tanks because the babies can be rather fragile. 
and yah. Still no angelfish.

Plus. This one was...malformed. 
The large angelfish.
It has a big chunk missing out of it's forehead. 
Which is either an old wound healed, a birth defect (less likely) or mistreatment of a fish to make it ill formed. 

Which I was like "Guys...why is there a giant angelfish in with the baby angelfish?"
And none of my coworkers had a clue!! 
()_()

Like...somehow.
Someone managed to bring a large angelfish into the store.
Put it in the tank.
And leave with none of us the wiser.

I mean...it was a Saturday...it was busy....So there were customers all over the place.
But with how often we have to be at the fish wall.
It's crazy to think that someone dropped off their fish there and we didn't see them do it. 
*shakes head* 

In any case.
Because the poor thing has a misshaped head and some torn up fins. 
I told my coworkers to move the angelfish into our display tank. Where it could have plenty of space in the 60 gallons to swim around.
And possibly have time to recover and be happy there.

I dunno how long he's going to stay in the tank though.
As people have a habit of wanting fish out of our display tanks. 
Which is a nightmare to fish out of btw. 

But at least he has a safe well taken care of home for now. 

Poor angelfish.
I wonder why someone dropped him off...

-Sarnic Dirchi

A Repeat Tap

So, there I was, cleaning the bird cages.
Which isn't the wire bird cages that people keep in their homes.
But instead the glass cages at work.
Where you can see the birds without any bars to interfere.
So there I was, cleaning the glass of the bird cages.
Being inside the cage, because birds being birds, they make messes on the glass constantly.

And it's not like the birds just calmly sit in a corner while you're cleaning the glass.
No, whenever you twitch, they spazz out and fly in all different directions and send feathers and dust and food every which way. 

But today, while I was cleaning.
There was this one particular bird.
That flew right into my arm, not once, but twice.

He like rammed right into my arm, bounced away, to fly to the other side of the cage, and then came zooming right back and ran into my arm in the same spot. Only to bounce away again. 

*shakes head*

I don't know if he was trying to land on my arm,
Or just...fly over/under it.
But needless to say.
He misjudged the up and down motion I was making while cleaning the glass.
And hit me.

Lucky me it didn't hurt. XD lol. Just was kinda amusing that the bird did it more than once. 

Maybe the bird was just trying to tell me to 'go away!' 

*shrugs*
who knows.

-Sarnic Dirchi